Patrice Nganang was born in Cameroon and is a novelist, a poet, and an essayist. His novel Mount Pleasant was translated into many languages, including Norwegian, German and Arabic. He is also the author of Dog Days, an award-winning novel telling the story of a people’s struggle for more freedom, which has also been translated into many languages. He teaches comparative literature and cultural studies at Stony Brook University.

Patrice Nganang was reported missing at the Douala airport on December 7, 2017, where he was to catch a flight on Kenya Airways to Harare, Zimbabwe. This was the day after publishing an article on the site Jeune Afrique, which criticitized Cameroonian president Paul Biya and his government’s treatment of English-speaking Cameroonian protesters. Patrice was detained for three weeks as he was about to fly out of his country of birth. On December 27, 2017 he was granted release and deported back to the US, where he holds dual citizenship. This event sparked the opportunity for Patrice to spread his work more widely and expand his career.

Patrice is often referred to as Tanou, meaning the father of stories given to him by his mother. This identity as a storyteller is fundamental to Patrice as an author, as it inspires him to write, telling stories of his own, which has been a catalyst for his career as an author and speaker. He tells stories to help people connect to each other, and see how everyone’s own stories create a larger story together. He has been navigating three continents for the last twenty years in his career both as a writer and a professor, starting in Germany. During the seventeen years Patrice has now been living in the US, he has spoken on many platforms, from universities, radio, and television.

A majestic tale of colonialism and transformation, Mount Pleasant tells the astonishing story of the birth of modern Cameroon, a place subject to the whims of the French and the Germans, yet engaged in a cultural revolution.

Life as a Migrant from Africa
Patrice speaks about his experience as an African immigrant, and his journey learning about cultures, languages, and more.

Engaging Your Community: The Risks and Rewards
Patrice uses his unique personal experience to discuss engaging in your community and the affect of getting involved in a meaningful way.

Praise for Mount Pleasant
"Patrice Nganang’s dazzling novel [stands] in a league of its own, so different from the great majority of novels by African writers in the past fifty or sixty years."
— Charles L. Larson, Counterpunch

"Cameroonian writer Nganang delivers a modern epic, tinged with liberal doses of magical realism, of life in his country's colonial era . . . An elegantly drawn and engaging world of a sort unknown to most readers—but one they'll be glad to have visited."
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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